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A SERMON 



DELIVERED IN THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA, 
NOVEMBER 28, 185S. 



H 



ALBERT BARNES 




PHILADELPHIA: 
PARRY AXD M C MILLAX. 

1859. 




OF Coi 



Tr-. 



J 






PHILADELPHIA : 
COLLINS, PRINTER, 705 LODGE ALLEY. 



An apology seems to be necessary for publishing a 
sermon having so much reference to my own life and 
opinions as this has. It is easy to conceive that circum- 
stances may exist which would make it proper for a 
Pastor thus to allude to himself in preaching, though 
they might not justify a more extended publication than 
that which is necessarily made in the pulpit, 

The following discourse was preached, without having 
been written, on a rainy day, when comparatively few 
persons were present, Some who were present have ex- 
pressed a desire to possess it, and some who were absent 
have expressed a wish to know what was said on the 
occasion. It has accordingly been written out, as nearly 
as could be recollected in the language in which it was 
delivered, though somewhat enlarged in the process of 
committing it to paper. It contains sentiments which I 
regard as important, and which I would wish to commend 
to those who are entering on life ; and if it has nothing 
else worthy of attention, it has one feature at least which 
I would hope may be useful. It will show that a man 
who has reached an age at which he can hope for little 
from the world, may take a cheerful and hopeful view of 



life — a view which may do something to stimulate those 
who are about to engage in the struggles, to meet the 
temptations, and to bear the burdens of life ; that a man 
who has reached the last stage of his journey may see 
much to live for on earth — much to encourage those who 
are just entering on their way. At the risk, therefore, 
of a charge of vanity which could not, I confess, be very 
easily replied to, but with, as I would hope, so prevalent 
a desire to do good as to justify what I am doing even 
with this risk, the sermon is committed to the press. 

ALBERT BARNES. 

Philadelphia, Dec. 31, 1858. 



LIFE AT THREE-SCORE. 



Psalm lxxi. IT, 18. 

God, thou hast taught me from my youth : axd hitherto 

HAVE I DECLARED THY WONDROUS WORKS. NOW ALSO, * * * * 

God, forsake me xot ; until I ha ye shewed thy strength 

UNTO THIS GENERATION, AXD THY POWER TO EVERY OXE THAT 18 
TO COME. 



The occasions are rare on which it is proper 
for a minister of the Gospel to obtrude himself, 
or his private concerns, on the attention of his 
people. He has, indeed, like other men, his 
own private history — the history of his feel- 
ings and opinions; his struggles and conflicts; 
his successes and reverses; his trials and com- 
forts; his hopes and fears. All these are of 
great interest to him, but in themselves they 
are of no more importance than the same 
things as they occur in other men. He may 
also have arduous labors to perform in his 



6 Life at Three-Score, 

profession, but so have other men in theirs ; 
and I have not learned that the work of the 
ministry is any more arduous, or more beset 
with cares and trials, than the path of men 
engaged in other callings of life. Merchants, 
farmers, lawyers, physicians, teachers, have 
their own history, and their own struggles, 
and I know not why such private matters 
have any more claim to public attention, or to 
public sympathy, when they occur in the lives 
of ministers of the Gospel, than when they oc- 
cur in the lives of men occupied in other pro- 
fessions. 

Influenced by considerations such as these, 
I have never, in the thirty-four years of my 
ministry, twenty-eight of which have been 
spent in your service, regarded my own work 
as of sufficient public interest to lead me to 
preach a sermon on the anniversary of my 
ordination or installation, nor have I been ac- 
customed to allude to myself, or to my private 
feelings, any further than occasionally to illus- 
trate some point connected with the work of 
religion in the soul. This I have supposed 



Life at Three- Score. 7 

was to some extent allowable, for it sometimes 
occurs that there is no way of illustrating the 
nature of religion, or of describing the Chris- 
tian warfare, better than that which is de- 
scribed from personal experience. 

If I live three days longer, however, I shall 
have reached a period of life which seems to 
me to make it proper to depart for once from 
the rule which I have prescribed for my con- 
duct ; a period not only of great moment to 
myself, but eminently favorable for taking a 
view of life as it appears in the past, and in 
the future. A man who has reached the six- 
tieth year of his life ought to be able to give 
some views of living which will be worth the 
attention of those who are starting on the 
way; he ought to be able to offer some counsel 
which it would be w r ise and safe for those who 
are young to follow; he ought to be able so to 
speak of the temptations of the world as to 
show how they may be avoided or overcome ; 
he ought to be able to say something which 
will encourage the next generation in the 
.duties of life; he ought to be able to utter some- 



8 Life at Three- Score, 

thing bright and hopeful in regard to the pros- 
pects which are to open upon the world which 
he is soon to leave — bright and hopeful in re- 
gard to the world to which he is so soon to go. 

Any young man has a right to ask a man 
of sixty. How life seems to him now ? How 
has the reality been as compared with the 
anticipation? How does the world appear 
now, as contrasted with the vision which rose 
before the mind of the boy when he sat by 
his father's fireside and formed in imagination 
his plans for future years; or when from Col- 
lege Halls he looked out on the world on 
which he was soon to enter ; or when he left 
the place where he had performed the duties 
of a clerk or apprentice to go out, cheerful or 
sad, to make his way in the world ? Has the 
world been what it promised ? Or are those 
visions all illusory and vain ? What is there, 
as seen by a man of sixty, w r hich is worth 
living for ? What should be sought by those 
entering on the journey? What should be 
avoided ? 

At this period of my life, therefore, will you 



Life at Three-Score. 9 

permit me so far to depart from my usual 
course, and from what seems to me to be usu- 
ally proper in this place, as t© say some things 
in a plain way of myself, as to what I have 
found life to be, and how it seems to me now. 

Mr. Hume, in his well written autobiogra- 
phy, says, " It is difficult for a man to speak 
long of himself without vanity; therefore," 
says he, "I shall be short." I am sensible of 
this danger, and I will endeavor not to expose 
myself to this charge. If I do, it shall be but 
once. 

What then have I found life to be ? How 
does it seem to me now ? 

The first thing which I have to say is, that 
I have found it to be all and more than all 
that I had hoped ; all and more than all that 
it promised. In other words, I have now a 
higher idea of life as such — of the desirable- 
ness of living— than I had at the outset. It 
seems to me to be a greater matter by far to 
live, and to carry out the real purposes of life, 
than it did w T hen I began my course. 

2* 



10 Life at Three- Score. 

I mean by this, that there is more that enters 
into the idea of living — of living in this world. 
It is a greater matter. It is a more desirable 
thing. There are more things to be accom- 
plished ; more to interest the mind, to win the 
heart, to impart happiness ; more to make it 
a serious matter to leave the world at all — to 
leave it with no prospect of returning to it 



again. 



I know that this is contrary to the impres- 
sion which is commonly entertained in regard 
to the feelings of a man as he approaches the 
period when, in the ordinary course of things, 
he must expect soon to die. The impression 
of the young commonly is, that when a man 
approaches the end of life, the objects which 
may have been so interesting to him at first 
must cease to interest him; that, as he has 
secured all the honor which he can hope to 
obtain, and gained all the wealth which he 
can hope to acquire, and tasted all the plea- 
sures which he can hope to enjoy, life can 
have little to attract him then, or, in other 



Life at Three-Score. 11 

words, that he can see little then which would 
be worth living for. 

That this may occur I cannot doubt ; but 
it is not so with me, and this is not the view 
which I now take of living in this world. 
Life, as such, has now more to interest me than 
it has had at any former period; more than it 
had when I looked out upon it in the bright 
visions of youth, or than it has had at any 
stage of my progress through the world. 
There is more to learn ; more to do • more in 
the world than I supposed; more to make it a 
matter of regret that it must be left. 

I do not refer here to the things which oc- 
cupy the attention of so large a portion of 
mankind, and which constitute in their appre- 
hension, all that there is in living ; the desire 
of wealth, fame, pleasure. Of the first of 
these, as a motive for living, I have never 
been, to my recollection, conscious at any time, 
nor am I conscious of it now. The second of 

. these I confess I have indulged to a degree 
which I cannot now justify, and I cannot but 

•feel that I may have been influenced by it even 



12 Life at Three Score. 

when I have supposed that I was acting from 
higher motives; but I have aimed to subdue 
it, and to keep it subordinate to a higher end, 
the desire to honor God. The third of these, 
whatever I may have felt in my earlier days, 
in common with others as they enter on life, 
I trust has been subdued by the grace of God, 
by advancing years, and by the growth of 
higher principles of action. When, therefore, 
I spoke of the world as more desirable to live 
in than it seemed to me at the beginning, I 
mean the world as such — as a part of the uni- 
verse of God— as a place where He is develop- 
ing his great plans; and when I speak of life 
as seeming more desirable to me now than 
ever before, I refer to it in reference to the 
great objects for which it was given, and to 
what may be done in securing those objects. 

I will specify a few things as illustrating 
this idea : — 

This is a different world from what it was 
sixty years ago. The universe, if I may so 
express it, is larger than it was then; the 
earth is more ancient and more grand. It is 



Life at Three-Score. 13 

true, indeed, that to the eye of an Omniscient 
Being, the universe is the same; but it is more 
vast and grand as it appears to man. Every 
sixty years of the earth's history, except per- 
haps the period of the dark ages, has made 
the world different; but no period of sixty 
years has made so great a change as that to 
which I now refer. The universe to human 
view is inconceivably more extended. There 
is not a science whose boundaries have not 
been greatly enlarged. Many of the most im- 
portant discoveries in science, and inventions 
in the arts, which are to be developed in their 
influence on following ages, have started into 
being in groups and clusters. Worlds and 
systems have been brought into view unknown 
to man before. 

The universe above is greater. During all 
that period, the astronomer has been pointing 
his telescope to the heavens, and penetrating 
the fields of blue ether, and revealing to man 
the wonders of the distant heavens ; enlarging 
the universe by all those measureless distances 
through which the eye has been made to pene- 



14 Life at Three-Score. 

trate. New stars have been discovered and 
mapped on the great chart of the heavens; a 
new planet as belonging to our system has 
been found from the fact of its disturbing in- 
fluence on those before known — a planet on 
which no human eye ever before rested; a vast 
number of asteroids, fragments of a larger 
planet, have been seen to revolve between the 
orbit of Mars and Jupiter; and distant nebulae, 
floating islands in the measureless distance, 
have been brought into view, and resolved into 
distinct and separate worlds. 

The world beneath is greater and more 
wonderful than it was. The microscope was 
indeed known, as was the telescope, sixty 
years ago ; but it had but just begun to 
reveal -the w T orld beneath us. It has not 
finished its work, but it has already disclosed 
a universe beneath us as unlimited and as 
wonderful as that above us. It has peopled 
every leaf in the forest, and every drop of 
water in rivulets, lakes, and oceans, with 
teeming multitudes of inhabitants, amazing 
us as much by their number, and by the deli- 



Life at Three-Score. 15 

cacy, skill, and beauty of their organization, 
as the telescope does by the number and the 
magnitudes of the worlds above us. We find 
ourselves as men standing thus in a universe 
extending inimitably above and below us, as 
incomprehensible on the one hand as on the 
other : boundless space above filled up with 
worlds where we thought there was an empty 
void, and beneath countless myriads of beings 
starting into life, and playing their little part, 
where all seemed to be blank. 

Our own earth is vaster and more grand 
than it was. Half a century ago, the prevail- 
ing — the almost universal belief — was, that 
the earth was created six thousand years ago, 
in its essential structure as it is now — rocks, 
and seas, and rivers, and hills having been 
called into existence as they now are, by the 
immediate command of God. It began, in- 
deed, to be whispered that it is older, and that 
important changes had occurred upon the 
earth before man appeared on it ; or that the 
earth had a history before the history of the 
human race. I remember in one of the 



16 Life at Three- Score, 

earliest stages of my education, meeting with 
a remark by Dr. Chalmers, designed to solve 
some of the growing difficulties from the new 
science of geology, that between the first and 
second verses of the Book of Genesis there 
might be supposed to have intervened an in- 
definite period of w r hich no account was given, 
the purpose of inspiration having been first to 
attest the general truth that " God created the 
heavens and the earth" or to secure this belief 
in the minds of men in opposition to the idea 
that the world is eternal, or is the work of 
fate or chance, and then, without detailing 
the intermediate history of the globe, to pro- 
ceed at once to the main purpose of the 
volume, the history of the Creation, the Fall 
and tire Eedemption of man ; that in fact the 
earth itself may have existed through a vast 
number of ages, and may have gone through 
a vast number of revolutions, with which man 
in his history was not particularly concerned, 
or which did not bear on the main purpose of 
the volume — the record of the Fall and Reco- 
very of a lost race. What was then almost 



Life at Three-Score. 17 

conjecture in regard to the past history of 
the earth, has been verified. The prevail- 
ing opinions respecting its recent origin have 
been set aside. To all that was before re- 
garded as grand in the conception of the 
earth, there is now added the truth that it 
has moved on its axis and in its orbit mil- 
lions of ages; that successive generations of 
animals have been formed, and have acted out 
the purpose of their creation, and have disap- 
peared forever ; that vast changes have oc- 
curred in the waters and on the land, displac- 
ing each other, and then peopled again with 
new myriads of inhabitants appropriate to each, 
and then again to pass away; that immense 
deposits of minerals had been made by the 
slow progress of ages, fitted for the use of an 
order of beings that had not yet appeared ; 
and that at last man, to whom all these 
changes had reference, and for whom all 
the previous arrangements were designed, 
appeared upon the earth, a being of higher 
order — the last in the series that was to oc- 



18 Life at Three- Score. 

cupy the globe. • With this view of the past, 
what a different object is the earth now from 
what it was half a century ago ! 

A large part of the discoveries in science, 
the inventions in the arts, and the arrange- 
ments in the schemes of benevolence that are 
to affect future times, and whose bearing can 
now be scarcely appreciated, has been ori- 
, ginated also in' this period of the world. The 
power of steam was not indeed unknown be- 
fore ; but the great changes which it is de- 
stined to produce in the commerce of the 
world are the results of the inventions of this 
age. The railroad and the magnetic telegraph 
have been originated in these times. Every 
science has been pushed forward. Elementary 
books- of instruction have been changed, and 
those which were adapted to the condition of 
the world sixty years ago would be useless now. 
If I were now to begin my education again, a 
large part of the books which I studied when 
young, would be valueless. I should, indeed, 
retain my Homer, my Virgil, and my Euclid, 
but the books in which I sought instruction in 



Life at Three-Score. 19 

chemistry, and geography, and natural philo- 
sophy, would no longer represent the science 
of the world, or convey correct views to my 
mind. The books which I then studied be- 
long to another age, and though they will 
serve to mark the steps by which the ad- 
vances of science have been made, they will 
never again.be a proper exponent of the true 
state of knowledge among mankind. I see 
wonders around me which have sprung up 
anew. Every river, lake, and ocean is navi- 
gated by steam; an iron road is laid down 
everywhere connecting all parts of a country 
together, along which are borne by a power 
unapplied when I was young, the productions 
of agriculture, manufactures and the arts, with 
a rapidity and a precision of which no one 
then could have formed a conception. A 
mysterious and incomprehensible network, 
like spiders' webs, is weaving itself over all 
lands, and making its way beneath deep wa- 
ters, by which thought is transmitted simulta- 
neously to millions of minds, and is diffused 
over distant lands regardless of mountains and 



20 Life at Three-Score. 

of oceans. How different such a world from 
what it was sixty years ago ! 

In the same time there have sprung also into 
being arrangements, then unknown, no less 
adapted to affect the moral and religious con- 
dition of mankind. The great enterprises of 
Christian benevolence, yet to result in the entire 
conversion of the world to God, have been ori- 
ginated in that time. The Bible was indeed 
in men's hands, and the Gospel was preached, 
and the power of the press was known, but 
the serious thought had scarcely found its way 
into the minds of the friends of the Saviour of 
bringing the combined influence of these agen- 
cies on the widest scale possible to bear on the 
unconverted portions of the race. Within the 
period of which I am now speaking, this 
thought has taken a firm possession of the 
Christian mind and heart, and the great work 
of the world's conversion has been entered on 
in earnest. The Bible has been translated 
into nearly all the languages of the world; 
the strongholds of the earth have been oc- 
cupied as missionary stations; millions of 



Lift at Three- Score. 21 

children are taught the great truths of Christ- 
ianity from week to week in Sabbath schools; 
and a Christian literature is spreading its in- 
fluence far and near over nominally Christian 
and Pagan lands. Whatever there is of power 
in these arrangements as bearing on the 
future, is the fruit of the spirit of this age ; 
and now, in reference to science, to the arts, 
to the efforts of benevolence — -to the world 
above, the world below, the world in the past, 
and the world around us, I see a different— a 
larger world — than it was when I began to 
live. 

I augur much from this; I hope much in 
reference to the future. I see that the next 
age is likely to be more fruitful of great results 
than even this has been; that it will be an 
age in which it will be more desirable to live 
than this has been. I look now on the begin- 
ning of things ; on the commencement of de- 
velopments which are to be far more grand 
and glorious than any which we have seen. 
John Robinson, the pastor of the Pilgrim 
Church at Leyden. in his farewell discourse to 



22 Life at Three-Score. 

the departing pilgrims, u charged them before 
God and his blessed angels to follow him no 
further than he had followed Christ ; and if 
God should reveal anything to them by any 
other instrument of his, to be as ready to re- 
ceive it as ever they were to receive any truth 
by his ministry ; for he zoas very confident the 
Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth 
out of his Holy Word"* The Bible, in his 
apprehension, was not exhausted. All its 
truths were not made known, and there was 
much in reserve for future times. So I look 
on the world now. The powers of nature are 
not exhausted. Her secrets are not yet all 
explored. The improvements in the art of 
printing ; the applications of steam to com- 
merce "and the arts ; the disclosures by the 
telescope, the microscope, and the blowpipe; 
the application of light in fixing the forms of 
things, and of the magnetic fluid in the trans- 
mission of thought, have not exhausted the 
secrets of nature. They have opened to us a 

* Cheever's Journal of the Pilgrims, p. 165. 



Life at Three-Score. 23 

world of wonders, and taught us to anticipate 
still greater inventions and discoveries, and 
not to be surprised at anything which may 
seem now to surpass the comprehension of the 
human mind. ^Ye have but just begun to 
wander at nature — to feel that we know but 
little about it — that its disclosures are but just 
commenced. I look forward then to greater 
wonders in the future, and as I leave the world 
I shall see opening upon it new inventions, dis- 
coveries, and improvements, as marvellous in 
their nature as those which have marked the 
age in which I have lived, and as far in advance 
of what we now see as those amazing discoveries 
are in advance of what preceding ages had 
done. You will not be surprised then at what 
I said, that I have now a higher idea of life 
as such — of the desirableness of living than 
I had at the outset. 

So also in reference to the grand purpose of 

living — the preparation for a future world — it 

. seems to me to be a greater object, a more 

desirable thing to live in this world, than it 

did when I began life. The importance of 



24 Life at Three-Score. 

this life as a season of probation steadily in- 
creases as we come in sight of the end, and 
see a vast eternity not far before us. The in- 
terests at stake grow larger and larger. Those 
things which ordinarily occupy the attention 
of mankind dwindle almost to nothing. — The 
earth, as it moves in its orbit from year to 
year, maintains its distance of ninety-five 
millions of miles from the sun, and the sun, 
except when seen through a hazy atmo- 
sphere, at its rising or its setting, seems at all 
times to be of the same magnitude — to hu- 
man view an object always small as compared 
with our own world. But suppose the earth 
should leave its orbit, and make its way in a 
direct line towards the sun. How soon would 
the sun seem to enlarge its dimensions ! How 
vast and bright would it become! How soon 
would it fill the whole field of vision, and all on 
the earth dwindle to nothing! So human life 
now appears to me. In earlier years eternity 
appears distant and small in importance. But 
at the period of life which I have now reached, 
it seems to me as if the earth had left the orbit 



Life at Three-Score. 25 

of its annual movements, and was making a 
rapid and direct flight to the sun. The ob- 
jects of eternity, towards which I am moving, 
rapidly enlarge themselves. They have be- 
come overpoweringly bright and grand. They 
fill the whole field of vision, and the earth, 
with all which is the common object of human 
ambition and pursuit, is retiring in the dis- 
tance and vanishing away! 

The second thing which I have to say is, 
that I have found the world favorably disposed 
towards those who are entering on life ; favor- 
ably disposed towards the efforts which may 
be made to promote its welfare. I found it 
willing to aid me when I was young; I have 
found it willing to favor my efforts thus far 
along the journey. I now regard it as kindly 
disposed towards young men; as willing to 
assist them in times of trouble and embar- 
rassment; as willing to commit all its great 
interests into their hands. 

I know that this also is contrary to a very 
prevalent impression. I am aware that there 



26 Life at Three- Score. 

is a feeling in the minds of many young men 
that the world is stern and unfriendly; that it 
is disposed to "turn on them the cold shoulder;" 
that they who have filled the various profes- 
sions, and who must soon leave the world, 
look with an eye of jealousy if not of envy, 
on those who are so soon to come into posses- 
sion of whatever they have gained themselves — 
w : ho must reap the reward which they would 
themselves gladly reap, and fill the offices 
which they could even yet, though in ad- 
vanced life, secure for themselves: in one 
word, that they give up the world reluctantly, 
and regard with distrust and suspicion those 
who are preparing to succeed them ; that they 
look on young men rather as rivals than as 
vigorous allies, and commit the great affairs of 
the church and the world into their hands be- 
cause they are compelled to do so, rather than 
because they have any confidence that in the 
hands of a succeeding generation the work 
will be well done. 

That there are such men I do not doubt. 
That there are those who are envious, and 



Life at Three- Score, 27 

jealous, and selfish ; that there are those who 
are indisposed to sympathize with young men 
in their efforts to get along in the world, who 
treat them with neglect, and who do nothing 
to aid them in their honorable efforts to start 
well in life, and who see them struggle along 
with difficulties without extending to them a 
helping hand, I cannot deny. There have 
been such men in every age; and it is possible 
that any one entering a life may come in con- 
tact with such men. 

But I have not found the w x orld so dis- 
posed towards me; nor is this my experience 
in respect to those in riper years who have 
borne the " burden and heat of the day," 
and who have toiled for objects which they 
have regarded as valuable. It was not my 
lot to find that the men who were in pos- 
session of the honors of the world, or who 
occupied positions of trust and responsibility, 
were unwilling to leave them to other hands; 
nor was it my experience that those who had 
gone before me were disposed to throw ob- 
stacles in my way as I entered on life. I 



28 Life at Three-Score. 

early formed the opinion, which I still enter- 
tain, that the world is favorably disposed 
towards young men, and that all which they 
who have filled the professions, and who have 
occupied positions of trust and responsibility, 
ask in regard to those who are to come after 
them, is that they shall evince traits of charac- 
ter which will make them worthy of confidence. 
When that is done, they are willing to commit 
all that for which they have toiled, and all 
which they regard as of so much value, into 
their hands. 

I began life with no wealth, and with no 
patronage from powerful friends. I was bless- 
ed with virtuous and industrious parents, and 
entered on my course with the advantage which 
was to be derived from their counsels and ex- 
ample. I was dependent on my own efforts. 
I claim no special credit for this, or sympathy 
on account of it, for this is the way in which 
most men begin the world. 

I have always found the world kindly dis- 
posed toward any exertion which I was dis- 
posed to make to put myself forward in life. 



Life at Three-Score. 29 

I do not remember that I ever found a man in 
my early years who was disposed to throw an 
obstacle in my way, or who would not have 
rejoiced in my success. My old Pastor, my 
teachers, my neighbors, I always found willing 
to help me forward, and what I found in them, 
I have found also in the strangers whom I 
have met in the journey of life. When I en- 
larged my acquaintance beyond the limits of 
my boyhood and youth, I did not encounter a 
cold and unfriendly world, or find that the 
men who had not before known me were dis- 
posed to impede my progress, or to throw 
embarrassments in my path. 

I have never lacked friends; never failed to 
find a friend when I had need of one. I know, 
indeed, what it is for a young man to weep 
when he starts out alone to engage in the great 
struggles of life ; but I know, also, what it is 
to have tears thus shed wiped away, and 
anxieties dispelled, and clouds dispersed, and 
the heart cheered as a man meets w 7 ith smiles, 
and good wishes, and new-made friends, and 



30 Life at Three Score. 

as the cheering voice of public sentiment en- 
courages him to go forward. 

As an illustration of this, it may not be im- 
proper to refer to my coming among you, and 
to some of the incidents connected with my 
ministry here. 

I came here a young man, with but little ex- 
perience, with no personal acquaintance with 
the manners and habits of a great city, and 
with no such reputation as to make success 
certain. I had never preached before the con- 
gregation, when I was called to be its Pastor. 
I came at that early period of life, and with 
that want of experience, to succeed the most 
learned, able, and eloquent preacher in the 
Presbyterian Church ; a man occupying a posi- 
tion in this community which no other man 
occupied ; a man who had ministered here more 
than twenty years; a man whose opinions 
secured a respect which few men have ever 
been able to secure ; a man beloved and vene- 
rated by the congregation to which he had so 
long ministered. I came to take charge of 
one of the largest and most influential congre- 



Life at Three-Score, 31 

gations in the land. I came when I was 
fully apprised that I must encounter from 
without a most decided and formidable oppo- 
sition to the views which I cherished, and to 
the doctrines which I had expressed. 

I found my venerable predecessor already, 
by anticipation, my friend. He defended my 
views. He indorsed my opinions. He ex- 
erted his great influence in the congregation 
in my favor, commending me, in every way, 
by his pen and his counsel, to the confidence 
and affection of the people to whom he had so 
long ministered. For six months, the time 
during which he lived after I became the Pas- 
tor of the church, he was my friend, my 
counsellor, my adviser, my example; he did 
all that could be done by man to make my 
ministry here useful and happy. 

I found a united people. During the six 
years of conflict which followed — years which 
are now so far in the past that they can be 
remembered only by a small portion of the 
congregation — notwithstanding all the efforts 
made from without to crush a young man, and 



32 Life at Three-Score. 

to divide the congregation, the congregation 
never swerved or hesitated. None were drawn 
away; none among us attempted to make a 
division. In every new phase of the now 
almost forgotten struggle before the Presby- 
tery, the Synod, and the church at large, the 
entire congregation stood by me until the great 
result was reached which gave us peace. 

I found the church at large prepared to sus- 
tain me. In the opposition which sprang up 
around us, I committed the cause — submitting 
for six painful months, for the sake of order, 
and because I believed the constitution of the 
church required it — to what I then regarded, 
and still regard, as a most unrighteous deci- 
sion, to the judgment of the church at large. 
The highest body known in our church — the 
General Assembly — the ultimate resort in de- 
termining the views of our church, reversed 
what had been done in the inferior tribunals ; 
confirmed all that we had been contending for; 
gave its sanction to the views in doctrine for 
which we had struggled; and confirmed, by 
its high authority, the principles which my 



Life at Three-Score. 33 

predecessor had maintained, and which I had 
endeavored, as well as I was able, to defend. 
I have seen evidence in this, I think,. certainly 
in my own case, that the w r orld is kindly dis- 
posed towards young men, and that in times 
of conflict and struggle, when a man needs a 
friend, he will find one. 

And I have found, also, that the world 
is not unwilling to listen to the truth ; and, 
unless my views greatly change in the little 
time that remains to me of life, I shall leave 
it with the firm conviction that truth may be 
made to commend itself to men so as to secure 
the assent of the understanding and the heart, 
I know the natural- opposition of the human 
heart to truth, and I am not ignorant that 
men, under the influence of sinful passions 
and pursuits, turn away from that truth which 
would lead them to God. But I have found in 
man that which, under God, may be relied on 
in the attempt to convince the world of truth. 
I have aimed, in my ministry — not now a short 
one — to declare the whole counsel of God. I 

4* 



34 Life at Three-Score. 

have embraced the Trinitarian system of re- 
ligion, and the Calvinistic system, and have 
not concealed the features of these systems 
from the world. I have endeavored to set 
forth the doctrines of human depravity, and 
of the atonement, and of the necessity of re- 
generation by the Holy Ghost. I have de- 
fended the doctrine of decrees, of election, of 
justification by faith, and of future retribution. 
I have endeavored to show to men that they 
can be saved by no merit of their own, and 
that their own works will avail them nothing 
in the matter of justification before God. I 
have spoken, as I was able, against all forms 
of vice, against all oppression and wrong, 
against sinful amusements; I have spoken 
freely of the theatre, and the gay assembly, 
and of the influence of the world on the mem- 
bers of the church. That I may have never 
given offence, is more than a man could have 
a right to hope, nor do I mean to say that I 
have always carried the hearts of my hearers 
with me. But I have never doubted that I 
could carry with me in the cause of truth, if 



Life at Three-Score, 35 

properly presented, the understandings and the 
consciences of my hearers ; nor do I now doubt 
that the great doctrines of religion may be so 
presented to mankind as to secure ultimately 
a universal conviction of their truth, and so 
as to bring all hearts under their control. I 
am hopeful, therefore, as the result of my ob- 
servation and experience, in regard to the 
power of the truth, and I expect to leave the 
world with the full conviction that it may be, 
and that it yet will be so presented to the 
mind of man as to secure a universal assent 
to its claims ; so that all men shall yet receive 
it, and retain it, with as much firmness as its 
comparatively few friends do now. 

In the third place, I have seen the value of 
temperance. I began life when the use of in- 
toxicating drinks prevailed generally in our 
country. I was never intemperate ; but I was 
exposed to the temptations to which those 
who enter on life when such habits prevail, are 
exposed, and I have seen many of the compa- 
nions of my early years sink to the grave as 



36 Life at Three- Score. 

the result of habits formed under those cus- 
toms. 

The great work of the temperance reforma- 
tion, in this country, commenced about the 
time that I entered on my ministry. I early 
embraced, in the most rigid form, personally, 
and with respect to my preaching, the great 
principle of the temperance reformation — that 
of entire abstinence from all intoxicating be- 
verages. I have preached, in former years, 
much on the subject; perhaps, as some may 
have thought, giving to this subject a dispro- 
portionate importance ; and, personally, I have 
adhered rigidly to the strict principles which 
I early adopted. 

I am now at a time of life, favorable, I 
think, for forming a candid opinion of the prin- 
ciples which I have held, and I have no motive 
for any bias in regard to the matter. After 
more than thirty years have passed away in 
practising on those principles, and, after having 
made so many efforts in my ministry to per- 
suade my fellow-men, and especially the 
young, to embrace them, I think I am in a 



Life at Three- Score. 37 

favorable situation for expressing an opinion 
as to their correctness and value. 

I naturally now look at the subject person- 
ally, and with reference to my public ministry. 

I have mentioned that I adopted the most 
rigid views on the subject. I embraced the 
principle of entire abstinence, from all that can 
intoxicate. I have adhered to that principle. 
For thirty years I have rigidly abstained from 
even wine, except as prescribed by a physician, 
and then most rarely. I have never kept it in 
my family ; I have never provided it for my 
friends ; I have declined it when it has been 
placed before me, and when I have been pre- 
sent where others, even clergymen, have in- 
dulged in its use. I have never concealed 
my sentiments on the subject; and in thus 
abstaining, in all the circles where I have 
been, whether of religious men, or worldly 
men, at home, at sea, abroad, I have seen only 
a marked respect for my sentiments. How- 
ever much I may have differed in practice 
from those with whom I have been, I have 
never known one thing done or said to give me 



38 Life at Three-Score. 

pain, nor have I found that men, whatever 
might be their own practice, have been any 
the less disposed to show me respect on ac- 
count of my views. I now approve the course, 
and if I were to live my life over again, I see 
nothing in this matter which I would wish to 
change. I am persuaded that the principle 
has all the importance which I have ever 
attached to it. I have lost nothing by it ; I 
have gained much, 

I have lost nothing on the score of health ; 
I have gained much. I have had a clearer 
intellect than I should otherwise have had; I 
have had more bodily vigor; I have had a 
calmer mind, and I have had more cheerful 
spirits. I have had more ability to labor, and 
I have had a more uniform inclination to 
labor. 

I have lost nothing in public estimation. I 
have no reason to believe that it has ever 
occurred that any one has been inclined to 
regard or treat me with less respect and confi- 
dence because of the principles which I have 
cherished on this subject, and which I have 



Life at Three-Score. 39 

endeavored to carry out in my daily life. No 
one has, to my knowledge, ever questioned the 
propriety of my course, in this respect; no 
one has ever suggested that it was inconsistent 
with my profession as a Christian man, or 
with my duty as a minister of the Gospel. 

I have lost nothing on the score of useful- 
ness. In looking back now over my course, I 
cannot believe that I should have been more 
useful to any class of men by adopting a differ- 
ent course ; I am certain that I should have 
been less useful to many— that many to whom 
I would be glad to be useful, would have been 
pained if I had pursued a different course, 
and would have made it an objection against 
the Gospel which I could not readily have 
met. 

I have lost nothing on the score of happi- 
ness. I am certain that I should have added 
nothing to the real happiness of my life if I 
had followed the usages which I found in so- 
ciety in early life, or if I had complied with 
the customs on this subject which formerly 
prevailed, and which, to some extent, still 



40 Life at Three-Score, 

prevail, among professing Christians and min- 
isters of the Gospel. I do not see now-— I 
cannot see — that a different course, in this re- 
spect, would have made me a more happy 
man. 

And I cannot forget that by this course of 
life, whatever may have occurred in other 
respects, I have escaped dangers to which I 
should have been exposed, and which might 
have proved my ruin. I have not lived so 
long upon the earth without seeing painful 
evidence that no profession, not even the 
ministry of the Gospel, of itself secures a man 
from the dangers of intemperance, and I have 
seen most sad and humiliating illustrations of 
the effect of indulging in intoxicating drinks 
even among ministers of the Gospel; and 
whatever else may have occurred in my life, 
it is a source of grateful reflection to me now, 
that I have not fallen as they have done; that 
I have been permitted to feel the confident 
assurance that as long as I adhered to this 
fixed purpose, I was absolutely certain that one 
of the direst curses that can come upon men 



Life at Three-Score. 41 

would never come upon me, that of disgracing 
my profession, and crushing the hearts of my 
friends, and covering my own name with in- 
famy, by intemperance. 

I adhere now, therefore, most firmly to the 
resolution which I adopted early in my life, 
and I intend, by the grace of God, to maintain 
it steadfastly till my death. I see no reason 
for changing it now ; I am certain that I shall 
see no reason hereafter for doing it. I can 
conceive of nothing that could be gained by 
my departing from it; and I do not intend 
to depart from it. My principles on this point 
are well understood by all who know me, and 
I intend that they shall always be thus under- 
stood. I commend the same rule to others, 
especially to those who are in the morning of 
life, as a safe and a wise rule of life. It can 
injure no one to abstain wholly from that 
which is not needful for vigor of mind or 
body; it would certainly save from that which 
is at all times most dangerous, and which may 
be ruinous to the body and to the soul. It 
would be securing much for any man at the 



42 Life at Three-Score. 

beginning of life, and make it absolutely certain 
that, whatever of calamity, trouble, misfortune, 
or change might occur, one thing was fixed, 
that he would never die a drunkard. The 
rule which I have adopted for myself, and 
which I have acted on, would make this ab- 
solutely certain in any case. 

I look with equal satisfaction and approba- 
tion over my public efforts in the cause of 
temperance. It was my lot to begin my 
ministry in a region of country where the 
usual customs on this subject prevailed, and 
where alcoholic drinks were extensively manu- 
factured and sold. Within the limits of my 
pastoral charge, embracing an extent not far 
from ten miles in diameter, there were nine- 
teen places where the article was manufac- 
tured, and twenty where it was sold. I con- 
sidered it my duty early to call the attention 
of my people to the subject. I presented my 
views, in successive discourses, plainly and 
earnestly. I appealed to their reason, to their 
conscience, to their religion. I showed what 
was the doctrine of the Bible on the subject, 



Life at Three-Score. 43 

and I stated the influence of the practice on 
the happiness of families, and on the peace, the 
order, and the morals of the community, and 
its influence in producing pauperism, wretch- 
edness, crime, and death. The appeal was 
not in vain. I found early in my ministry, 
even where habits had been , long established ; 
where property was involved ; and where sacri- 
fices would be required on their part in adopt- 
ing my views, that men would listen to the 
voice of reason, and the voice of God. I had 
the happiness to know that in eighteen out of 
the twenty places where intoxicating drinks 
were sold, the traffic was soon abandoned ; and 
I saw in seventeen out of nineteen of those 
places where the poison was manufactured, 
the fires go out to be rekindled no more. I 
had a proof thus early in my ministry, which 
has been of great value to me since, of the 
fact that truth may be presented to the minds 
of men so as to secure their approbation even 
when great pecuniary sacrifices must be made, 
and when it would lead to important changes 
in the customs and habits of society. 



44 Life at Three-Score. 

I have maintained publicly the same prin- 
ciples since. I have defended the cause of 
temperance in every way in my power. I 
have advocated the principle of total absti- 
nence from all that can intoxicate; I have 
vindicated the use of "the pledge;" I have 
argued against those laws which contemplate 
the licensing of that which is admitted to be 
ah evil; I have exhorted the church to set an 
example of total abstinence; I have endeavored 
to show that the manufacture and sale of 
ardent spirits for drinking purposes can be 
reconciled neither with the principles of sound 
morality nor religion; I have defended the 
propriety of a law which would wholly pro- 
hibit the sale of alcoholic drinks, except for 
purposes of medicine and manufactures. I 
have endeavored to show you, that as you 
would not suffer a powder manufactory to be 
set up in Washington Square; as you would 
not allow a cargo of damaged hides to be 
landed at your wharves; as you would not 
permit a vessel from an infected region to come 
into port, so the true and the safe principle 



Life at Three-Score. 45 

would be to exclude and prohibit forever that 
which spreads woe, poverty, disease, crime, pol- 
lution and death ; that a community is bound 
to protect itself, and that no class of men, for 
private gain, can have a right to scatter death 
and ruin around the land. 

The cause of temperance, as a cause, has 
met with a Waterloo defeat. The advocates 
of the use of intoxicating liquors have tri- 
umphed. The barriers against intemperance 
have been broken down. The temperance 
societies have been disbanded. The restraints 
on the manufacture and sale of that which 
poisons and ruins have been withdrawn. The 
utmost liberty in the manufacture and sale 
has been conceded by the laws; and the voice 
of persuasion, of entreaty, and of warning 
has almost died away. The community 
has determined that there shall be no re- 
straint, and that all men may manufacture, 
and sell, and drink as they please. The 
floodgates are thrown wide open, and the ex- 
periment is to be again made, on the largest 



5* 



46 Life at Three-Score. 

scale, to determine what will be the effect of 
unlimited indulgence in intoxicating drinks. 
The community has expressed its willingness 
to tax itself to support paupers, ninety-nine 
out of every hundred of whom are made pau- 
pers by the direct or indirect influence of in- 
toxication; to pay the expenses of building 
prisons, and conducting the business of courts, 
and supporting convicts for burglary, arson, 
brawls, and manslaughter, nine cases out of 
every ten of which are produced by intemper- 
ance — to bear this enormous burden because 
there is a small portion of the community 
which demands the privilege of supporting 
itself by scattering wretchedness and crime 
over the land; by breaking the hearts of 
wives, mothers, and sisters, and by consigning 
husbands, fathers, and sons to the wretched 
grave of the drunkard. Meantime the press 
is silent. The pulpit is dumb. The voice of 
warning and entreaty has died away. A most 
fearful experiment is made in the land; an 
experiment whose result God alone can see. 
I adhere now, and shall till I die, to the 



Life at Three-Score. 47 

principles on this subject which I have pub- 
licly advocated, and I believe that they will 
ultimately be found to be true principles, and 
that the world will adopt them. I believe 
that the manufacture and sale of ardent spirits 
for the purpose of a beverage is an immoral 
employment, and a ruinous- waste of capital ; 
that the only safe and correct principle for an 
individual, if he would promote his health, his 
prosperity, his reputation, his usefulness here, 
and his salvation in the world to come, is that 
of total abstinence; that the practice of licens- 
ing an evil in any form and for any purposes — 
of throwing the protection of the law, for a mi- 
serable revenue, over that which spreads woe, 
and poverty, and crime inihe land, is as erro- 
neous in principle as it is pernicious in its con- 
sequences; and that the true principle in the 
matter is that of entire prohibition of that 
which is " evil, and only evil, and evil continu- 
ally." I believe that a community would be 
better and happier; more prosperous in worldly 
matters, and more religious towards God, where 
this should be done; and that in doing this, 



48 Life at Three-Score. 

no just principle in legislation would be vio- 
lated. I expect to die holding that opinion. 

In the fourth place, I have seen the value 
of industry ; and as I owe to this, under God, 
whatever success I have obtained, it seems to 
me not improper to speak of it here, and to 
recommend the habit to those who are just 
entering on life. 

I had nothing else to depend on but this. 
I had no capital when I began life; I had no 
powerful patronage to help me ; I had no na- 
tural endowments, as I believe that no man 
has, that could supply the place of industry; 
and it is not improper here to say that all 
that I have been able to do in this world has 
been -the result of habits of industry which 
began early in life; which were commended 
to me by the example of a venerated father; 
and which have been, and are, an abiding 
source of enjoyment. 

And here — and it was with a view to this 
in part that I have introduced this subject at 
all — it seems to me to be proper to allude to 



Life at Three-Score. 49 

what I have never before referred to in the 
pulpit — the use which I have made of the 
press. It may have appeared strange that a 
man with such a pastoral charge as I have 
had, and under such responsibilities as have 
been on me — a salaried man, employed to do 
a specific work, and that not the work of 
book-making — should have felt himself at 
liberty to devote so much time as I have clone 
to an employment that seems to be so con- 
nected wdth a private end, and so remote from 
the duties of a pastor. I admit that the point 
is one which demands some explanation, and 
though I have never learned that any com- 
plaint has been made in any quarter on the 
subject, yet it seems proper that once for all — 
and no better time to do it is likely to occur — 
I should state why it has been done. 

Dr. Doddridge, in reference to his own work, 
the " Paraphrase on the New Testament" — a 
work which, in my judgment, better expresses 
the true sense of the New Testament, and is a 
more finished and elegant commentary on 
that portion of the Bible than any other in 



50 Life at Three-Score. 

the English language — said that its being 
written at all was owing to the difference 
between rising at five and at seven o'clock in 
the morning. A remark similar to this will 
explain all that I have done. Whatever I 
have accomplished in the way of commentary 
on the Scriptures is to be traced to the fact of 
rising at four in the morning, and to the time 
thus secured which I thought might properly 
be employed in a work not immediately con- 
nected with my pastoral labors. That habit I 
have pursued now for many years; rather, as 
far as my conscience advises me on the sub- 
ject, because I loved the work itself, than 
from any idea of gain or of reputation, or, 
indeed, from any definite plan as to the work 
itself. 

And here, as my publications on the Scrip- 
tures have had a circulation which I never 
anticipated, and which I have always found 
it difficult to account for, it may be proper to 
state 5 in few words, the manner in which my 
attention was first directed to it, and the prin- 
ciples on which the work has been conducted, 



Life at Three-Score. 51 

until a result has been reached which so as- 
tonishes me, and which overwhelms me now 
with the responsibility of what I have done. 

My attention was first directed to the sub- 
ject by what seemed to me to be a want in 
Sabbath-schools, the want of a plain and sim- 
ple commentary on the Gospels, wdrich could 
be put into the hands of teachers, and which 
would furnish an easy explanation of the mean- 
ing of the sacred writers. I began the work, 
and prepared brief notes on a portion of the 
Gospel by Matthew, when I incidentally learn- 
ed that the Bev. James W. Alexander, D. D , 
then of Trenton, now of New York, was en- 
gaged in preparing a similar work. Not deem- 
ing it desirable that two books of the same 
kind should be prepared, I wrote to him on 
the subject. He replied that he had been 
employed by the American Sunday-School 
Union to prepare such a work; that he had 
made about the same amount of manuscript 
preparation which I had done; that he re- 
garded it as undesirable that two works of 
the same character should be issued, that his 



52 Life at Three-Score, 

health was delicate, and that he would gladly 
relinquish the undertaking. He abandoned 
it, as I have always felt, with a generous 
spirit, manifesting at that early time of life, 
alike in the act itself, and in his letter to me 
on the subject, the same high trait of cha- 
racter as a Christian gentleman which has 
always so eminently distinguished him. I have 
prosecuted the work until a result has been 
reached which I by no means contemplated at 
the outset. 

All my commentaries on the Scriptures 
have been written before nine o'clock in the 
morning. At the very beginning, now more 
than thirty years ago, I adopted a resolution 
to stop writing on these Notes when the clock 
struck nine. This resolution I have invaria- 
bly adhered to, not unfrequently finishing my 
morning task in the midst of a paragraph, and 
sometimes even in the midst of a sentence. 

In preparing so many books for the public, 
while under obligation to perform the duties of 
a Pastor in a large congregation, seemingly 
abstracting time for a private end which might 



Life at Three- Score. 53 

have been devoted directly to my duties as a 
Christian minister, I have justified my course 
to my own mind by two considerations : — 

One was, that I thought that no one could 
reasonably complain, if I took that time for 
what seemed to be a side-work, before men 
usually entered on the duties of the day, and 
that if I devoted the time after nine in the 
morning to the work of preparation for the 
pulpit, and to my pastoral labors, I should 
devote as much each day to my professional 
duties as other men ordinarily do to the call- 
ings of life; and, 

The other was, that I could in no way bet- 
ter prepare myself for my public ministerial 
labors, than by devoting a portion of each 
morning to the careful study of the Word of 
God — the volume which it has been the duty 
of my life to explain and defend. The best 
method of studying any subject is by writing on 
it; and, apart from all idea of publication, and 
even supposing that accumulated manuscripts 
were committed to the flames, I know now of 
no way in which a minister of the Gospel could 



54 Life at Three-Score. 

better prepare himself for his public min- 
istrations; than by spending two hours each 
morning in a careful and critical study of the 
Bible. I know of no part of my studies from 
which I have derived more real aid in my 
public ministrations, than from the habit thus 
early formed, and so long persevered in, of 
beginning each day with the study of the Word 
of God. At the same time, it is not improper 
to refer here to the happiness which I have 
found in these studies. In the recollection 
now of the past portions of my life, I refer to 
these morning hours — to the stillness and quiet 
of my room in this house of God when I have 
been permitted to " prevent the dawning of the 
morning" in the study of the Bible, while the 
inhabitants of this great city were slumbering 
round about me, and before the cares of the 
day and its direct responsibilities came on me 
— to the hours w r hich I have thus spent in a 
close contemplation of divine truth, endeavor- 
ing to understand its import, to remove the 
difficulties that might pertain to it, and to 
ascertain its practical bearing on the Christian 



Life at Hirer- Score. 55 

life — T refer, I say, to these scenes as among 
the happiest portions of my life. If I have 
had any true communion with God in my life; 
if I have made any progress in Christian 
piety; if I am, in any respect, a better man, 
and a more confirmed Christian, than I was 
when I entered the ministry-; if I have made 

a/ ' 

any progress in my preparation for that world 
on which I must, at no distant period, enter ; 
and if I have been enabled to do you any good 
in explaining to you the Word of God, it has 
been closely connected with those calm and 
quiet scenes when I felt that I was alone with 
God, and when my mind was thus brought into 
close contact with those truths which the Holy 
Ghost has inspired. I look back to those pe- 
riods of my life with gratitude to God ; and I 
could not do a better thins; in reference to my 
younger brethren in the ministry, than to com- 
mend this habit to them as one closely con- 
nected with their own personal piety, and 
their usefulness in the world. 

Manuscripts, when a man writes every day, 
even though he writes but little, accumulate. 



56 Life at Three-Score. 

Dr. Johnson was once asked how it was that 
the Christian Fathers, and the men of other 
times, could find leisure to fill so many folios 
with the productions of their pens. " Nothing 
is easier/' said he, and he at once began a cal- 
culation to show what would be the effect in 
the ordinary term of a man's life if he wrote 
only one octavo page in a day; and the ques- 
tion was solved. The result in thirty or forty 
years would account for all that Jerome, or 
Chrysostom, or Augustine; that Luther, Cal- 
vin, or Baxter have done. In this manner 
manuscripts accumulated on my hands until 
I have been surprised to find that by this 
slow and steady process I have been enabled 
to prepare eleven volumes of commentary on 
the New Testament, and five on portions of 
the Old Testament, and that the aggregate 
number of volumes of commentary on the 
New Testament which I have thus sent abroad, 
is more than four hundred thousand in our 
own country, and I suppose a larger number 
abroad. 

I cannot but feel now most deeply the re- 



Life at Three-Score. 57 

sponsibility of the work which I have done, 
and which is so foreign to any purpose or ex- 
pectation of my early years. I cannot now 
recall those books. I cannot control any im- 
pression which they may make. It affects 
me also deeply to reflect that the sentiments 
in those books are most likely to come in 
contact with minds through which they will 
exert an influence when I am dead — the 
minds of the young. And yet I would not 
recall them if I could. With all my con- 
sciousness of their imperfection, and with my 
firm expectation that some man will yet pre- 
pare a commentary on the New Testament 
far better fitted to accomplish the end which 
I have sought than my own writings are, and 
with the feeling that, at my time of life, I 
cannot hope to revise them, and to make them 
conformable to what I would desire them to 
be, I still believe that they contain the system 
of eternal truth; that they defend what is 
right; that their influence will be to illustrate, 
in some measure, a great system of doctrines, 
which is closely connected with the salvation 



58 Life at Three-Score. 

of men; and that, with all their imperfections, 
they give utterance to just sentiments on the 
nature of true piety, and the duties of practi- 
cal religion. They will disappear from the 
world as other books have clone, and as their 
author will — alike forgotten. Yet the truths 
which they are designed to illustrate will live 
on to the end of time; truths I hope to be 
better illustrated, and more earnestly enforced, 
by those who are to come after us. 

I shall depart from the world when my 
allotted time comes, with an impression con- 
stantly increasing, of the value of the press, 
and especially of its value as an auxiliary in 
spreading abroad the truths of the Gospel of 
Christ. Its importance as an aid in diffusing 
truth is not yet fully known, and is not appre- 
ciated as it should be, even by ministers of 
religion. Without departing in any manner 
from the proper work of the ministry; with- 
out leading them in any way to neglect the 
preaching of the Gospel, or their proper pas- 
toral duties; and with no purpose on their 
part to make it a source of fame or emolument, 



Life at Three-Score. 59 

it seems to me now that much may be ex- 
pected by the church at large from the large 
body of educated men in the ministry, who, 
by their training, their talents, and their 
position, have so much power to influence 
the minds of men through the press. 

In the fifth place, I have seen the value of 
religion, and have become more and more con- 
vinced, as I have passed along on the journey 
of life, that the Bible is a revelation from God. 

I began life a sceptic in religion, and I 
early fortified and poisoned my mind by read- 
ing all the books to which I could find access, 
that were adapted to foster and sustain my 
native scepticism. Up to the age of-nineteen, 
though outwardly moral, and though, in the 
main, respectful in my treatment of religion, 
I had no belief in the Bible as a revelation 
from God, nor was I willing to be convinced 
that it is such a revelation. 

Circumstances which need not now be ad- 
verted to, but which related rather to the 
choice of a profession than to any question 



60 Life at Three-Score, 

about the truth of religion, led me to some 
reflection on the general subject of the future, 
and to the course which I should pursue in 
the world. I should have shrunk at that time 
from its being understood that I read the 
Bible, and I should equally have avoided any 
book that would be understood by my asso- 
ciates to suggest the thought that I was a 
serious inquirer in regard to my salvation. 
Among them, however, I was not ashamed to 
be seen reading a book which was in all our 
hands — the Edinburgh Encyclopedia — then in a 
course of publication. One of the numbers of 
that work had an article by Dr. Chalmers, en- 
titled Christianity. I read it. The argument 
to me was new. It fixed my attention. It 
commanded my assent. It convinced me, in- 
tellectually, of the divine origin of the Chris- 
tian religion. At this day, that article seems 
to me to be among the most able of the pro- 
ductions of that great man, and to be the best 
defence of the truth of Christianity which has 
been published. 

But with this intellectual conviction I 



Life at Three-Score. 61 

paused. I formed a purpose on the subject of 
religion which I then intended should regulate 
my future course in this world. It was to 
lead henceforward a strictly moral life; to say 
nothing against religion; not to be found on 
any occasion among its opposers; but to yield 
to its claims no farther. I resolved, to express 
all my purpose at that time in one word, to 
frame my life, in this respect, on what I un- 
derstood to be the character and views of Dr. 
Franklin. 

A year afterwards a revival of religion com- 
menced in the college of which I was then a 
member, and affected particularly the class 
with which I was connected. I resolved to 
carry out at this time, and in reference to the 
existing religious movement, the resolution 
which I had previously formed. I determined 
to say nothing against the revival ; but to stand 
aloof from it, and in no respect to yield to its 
influence. I supposed that I was sufficiently 
guarded in reference to this, and that no ap- 
peal which could be made to me would affect 
me. A classmate, recently converted, stated 



62 Life at Three-Score. 

to me in simple words, and with no appeal to 
me personally, his own feelings on the subject 
of religion; described the change which had 
occurred in his mind, and left me. His words 
went to my heart; led me to reflect on my 
own condition, and were the means, under 
God, of that great change which has so mate- 
rially affected ail my plans in this life, and 
which I anticipate and hope will affect my 
condition forever. 

I advert to this here, not only because it 
was an important event in my own life, but 
because it has taught me some great truths in 
regard to religion. My own experience thus 
referred to has shown me that conversion from 
infidelity to Christianity, so as to secure an 
intellectual assent to it as a system, is not 
necessarily conversion to true religion; that 
a man may be convinced of the truth of the 
Bible, and pause there, making no progress 
ever afterwards; that much more than such 
a conviction is necessary to save the soul ; 
and that they who yield the understanding 
to God and to his truth, and withhold the 



Life at Tit, ■ 63 

heart from the claims of the Gospel, as I had 
done, are not safe in regard to another world. 
Had I paused there, as I purposed to do, my 
whole course in this world would have been 
different; my everlasting condition in another 
world, I cannot but believe, would have been 
essentially unlike what I trust now that it 
will be. I have always, therefore, looked with 
deep interest and concern on that class of 
men, so numerous and so respectable, who 
yield an intellectual assent to the Christian 
religion, and who go no farther; who admit 
that the Bible is from God, but who form a 
purpose, secret or avowed, that it shall have 
no ascendency over the heart. My own expe- 
rience has taught me that their feet stand on 
slippery rocks, and, urged by that experience, 
and bv the recollection of my own danger, it 
has been one great aim of my ministry to lead 
that class of men to a better foundation of 
hope. 

This change in my views and feelings oc- 
curred nearly forty years ago. It led to an 
entire change in my plans of life, and in my 



64 Life at Three-Score. 

choice of a profession. The time of my con- 
version to Christ, if I was truly converted, 
and of my change in my plans of life, was 
simultaneous. I had intended to enter the 
legal profession, and had looked forward to it 
with the ardor of an ambitious mind, nor have 
I ever ceased to feel a deep personal interest 
in it. As I view the matter now, it would be 
to me among the most attractive callings of 
life, and would be next in my choice to the 
one in which I have spent my days. But 
the question, in my case, between the lav/ 
and the ministry, seemed to me to be one 
involving no doubt and admitting of no hesi- 
tation. 

I have never had occasion to regret the 
change. To that change alike in regard to 
my feelings, and to my purposes in life, I 
now look back with more satisfaction than to 
any other change which has occurred, or to 
any other purpose which I have formed. If 
I were to live my life over again, I should 
desire that the same change should occur 
again as most closely identified with my hap- 



Life at Three-Score. 65 

piness and my usefulness in this world, and 
with my hopes in the future life. 

I am now more firmly, and I trust more in- 
telligently impressed with the truth of Chris- 
tianity, and with the belief that the Bible is 
a revelation from God, than I was when that 
change occurred. That I saw difficulties in 
the scheme of Christianity, and in the Bible, 
then; that I have seen them since; that I see 
them now, I do not deny; nor do I expect to 
reach a position in this world where objections 
could not be suggested on the whole subject 
of religion which I should not be able to solve. 
But I have spent more than thirty years in a 
close study of the sacred Scriptures, and no 
small part of my inquiries has had reference 
to the difficulties which were suggested to my 
mind by my early scepticism, and to those 
which to a mind naturally inclined to unbelief 
have been suggested since. I do not mean to 
say that all those difficulties have been re- 
moved. But I have found that, on a close 
examination, not a few of those which at first 
perplexed me have silently disappeared; that 



66 Life at Three-Score. 

a large part of those which have been since 
suggested have vanished also ; and that, in the 
mean time, the evidences of the truth of the 
Bible have, in my apprehension, become 
stronger and stronger. Thus a large part of 
the difficulties which once perplexed me have 
vanished entirely; a portion of them have 
taken their place by the side of undisputed 
fads actually existing in the world, in refer- 
ence to which there are the same difficult 
questions to be answered as in regard to the 
difficulties in the Bible, and which do not 
pertain, therefore, peculiarly to revelation, 
and about which, as a believer in revelation, 
I give myself no special perplexity or trou- 
ble. My experience in the matter has led 
me to hope and believe that a longer and 
more patient study w r ould in a similar manner 
remove all the difficulties which I now see in 
the Christian system, and make what now 
appears to be inconsistent harmonious, and 
what is now dark clear. I come, therefore, 
in this respect, with the language of encou- 
ragement to those who are now just entering 



Life at Three-Score. 67 

on their Christian way, and who find their 
minds poisoned by scepticism, and their course 
impeded by difficulties. Time, patience, study, 
reflection, prayer, suggestions from within and 
from without, accompanied by the influences 
of the Divine Spirit, will remove most of 
those difficulties, and will leave at last only 
those which belong, not peculiarly to the 
Bible, but to the mysterious order of things 
around us; to those which lie wholly beyond 
the reach of our present powers, and which 
must be left for solution to an eternal world. 
It should never be forgotten that these great 
subjects are to engross our thoughts forever, 
and that it was needful that the universe 
should be so made as to give eternal occu- 
pation to the intellect and the he?trt. We 
are in the very infancy of our being now, 
and it would make the heaven before us a 
blank if there were no subjects demanding 
our thoughts, and fitted to give occupation to 
mind, which we could not grasp and explain 
now. I have never intended to turn away 
from any difficulty which has come in my path 



68 Life at Three-Score. 

on the subject of religion; I have never de- 
signed to evade an objection, come from what 
quarter it might; I have never refused as a 
personal matter to listen to any suggestion 
which would seem to militate against the truth 
of religion, and to examine it. I can have 
no object in being deceived, or in deceiving 
others; I have as much personal interest as 
any other man can have in the question 
whether Christianity is true or false. I say 
now, therefore, that I am more firmly and 
more intelligently convinced of the truth of 
the Bible than I was at twenty-one years of 
age; that the difficulties which I then saw 
have been silently and gradually melting 
away; and that I now perceive scarcely any 
which I do not see existing with equal force 
in the analogy of nature, or which are not 
such as lie beyond the powers of man as yet 
developed, and which properly pertain to an- 
other world. 

The language of the late Professor Stuart, 
of Andover, well describes my own experience 
on this subject : " In the early part of my 



Life at Three-Score. 69 

Biblical studies, some thirty to thirty-five 
3 r ears ago/' says he, " when I first began the 
critical investigation of the Scriptures, doubts 
and difficulties started up on every side, like 
the armed men whom Cadmus is fabled to 
have raised up. Time, patience, continued 
study, a better acquaintance, with the original 
Scriptural languages, and the countries where 
the sacred books were written, have scattered 
to the winds nearly all those doubts. I meet, 
indeed," says he, " with difficulties still, which 
I cannot solve at once; with some where even 
repeated efforts have not solved them. But I 
quiet myself by calling to mind, that hosts of 
other difficulties, once apparently to me as 
formidable as these, have been removed, and 
have disappeared from the circle of my trou- 
bled vision. Why may I not hope, then, as 
to the difficulties that remain?"* 

I now declare to you solemnly in this public 
manner, that I have no hope of the immor- 
tality of the soul, or of future happiness, ex- 

* Canon of the Old Testament, p. 18. 



70 Life at Three- Score. 

cept that which is found in the Gospel of 
Christ. I have seen no evidence — I now see 
none — of the immortality of the soul as de- 
rived from human reasoning which would be 
satisfactory to my mind, and my belief that 
the soul will exist forever is founded on the 
fact that "life and immortality are brought to 
light through the Gospel." The reasoning of 
Plato on the subject, in the Phsedo, has done 
nothing to convince me on that point, nor have 
I met with any reasoning, apart from the 
statements of the Bible, which would convince 
me, or which would give support and consola- 
tion to my anxious mind when I think on this 
great subject. And, in the same manner, I 
declare to you that I have no hope of heaven 
except that which is derived from what the 
Saviour has done for lost sinners — a hope 
founded solely on his atonement ; his merit ; 
his intercession. I can adopt now, as express- 
ing the whole of my belief and my hope, the 
sentiment which my venerable preceptor, Dr. 
Alexander, is understood to have expressed 
in his last moments, as constituting the 



Life at Three-Score. 71 

" whole of his theology :" " This is a faithful 
saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that 
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sin- 
ners;" and though I fear that in death I should 
be compelled, much more than he needed to 
do, to mingle with this expression of my faith 
the language which our great statesman* is 
said to have uttered in his dying moments, 
" Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief/' 
yet still this is my faith, and this is my hope. 
I have no other. I desire no other. 

I have thus submitted to you what I wished 
to express on an occasion that is to me of so 
much interest. I could turn the table — I 
could give you the obverse of this — I could 
recount errors and short-comings and imper- 
fections in my life, of which I am now deeply 
conscious, and which will be to me a source of 
regret to the end of my days : but these do not 
pertain to an occasion like this. They belong 
to the " closet" — the place where a man is 
alone with God, and where he seeks for pardon 
through the blood of the atonement. 

* Daniel Webster. 



72 Life at Three-Score. 

I enter now on what I must regard as the 
last stage of my existence on earth. I have 
reached the summit of life. I cannot expect 
or hope to rise higher. I have come to 
the top of the hill, and I have found there, 
as one sometimes does when he ascends a 
mountain, a little spot which seems to me to 
be level ground — a small area of table-land — 
a plateau — that spreads out a little distance 
around me. If I am permitted to walk for a 
few years on that plateau — that table-land — 
that level spot — it is all that I can now hope 
for. I can look for no greater degree of vigor 
of body or of mind ; for no greater ability to 
labor. That little spot of level ground which I 
seem to have found on the summit, spreads out 
before- rne with much that is inviting. I cannot 
deny that I would, on many accounts, love to 
linger there, and extend my walk further than 
I can reasonably hope that I shall be permitted 
to do. But I desire not to forget that though 
this little spot seems to me to be level, yet 
if I continue to walk over it for a little 
time I must find it soon begin to slope in the 



Life at Three-Score. 73 

other direction, or that I may soon come to a 
precipice down which I shall suddenly fall to 
rise no more. At all events, I know that 
I shall — that I must — soon come to a place 
where it will begin to descend ; nor would I 
forget that the descent must be much more 
steep than the rise has been, and that the hill 
which has been of so easy a grade on the one 
side may be on the other a most steep de- 
clivity, or that from the top of the hill which 
it has required so many years to climb, the 
descent to the bottom may occur in a moment. 
Permit me to say that I am, at this period 
of my life, hopeful in regard to the world : to 
truth, to religion, to liberty, to the advance- 
ment of the race. The world is growing bet- 
ter ; not worse. It is better now than it was 
sixty years ago ; it is becoming better every 
year, every month, every day. In its progress 
society takes hold of all that is valuable, or 
that constitutes real improvement, and will 
not let it die. That which is worthless is 
superseded by that which is useful; that 
which is injurious and wrong is dropped by 



74 Life at Three-Score. 

the way; that which goes permanently into 
the good order of the world alone is retained. 
There is more love of truth than there was 
sixty years ago; there is more science ; there 
are more of the comforts of life ; there is more 
freedom; there is more religion. There will 
be more in the next age than there is now ; 
and so on to the end of time. Christianity 
never had so firm a hold on the intelligent 
faith of mankind as it has now. It will have 
a firmer hold on the next age, and will extend 
its triumphs until the world — the whole world 
— shall be converted to the Saviour. Old men 
often feel that the world is growing worse. I 
have not that feeling now; by the grace of 
God I shall never have it. I intend to hold 
on to the conviction which I now have at this 
mature period of my life, that the world is 
becoming better ; I design to cherish this con- 
viction when I die. I do not despond or 
despair in regard to men ; to the church ; to 
my country; to the cause of humanity; to 
the cause of freedom. I believe that the 
whole world will be converted to truth and 



Life at Three-Score. 75 

righteousness ; and if I should be spared to 
that period when I should be willing to fill up 
that part of the text which I have omitted 
now, and to speak of myself as "old and gray- 
headed" I intend that there shall be at least 
one aged man who will take a cheerful and 
hopeful view of the world as he leaves it.— 
Happy will he be who shall live in those 
times that are coming upon the world, and 
who shall see the full development of the 
things now springing up on the earth which 
tend to the recovery and redemption of the 
race! It is much to have lived sixty years 
in a period of the world like that which is 
now past ; it w T ill be a much greater thing to 
live in those brighter and happier years which 
are soon to follow. With my views of heaven, 
I can indeed envy — even if envy were ever 
proper — no one who is to remain on the 
earth 5 and yet there are scenes to occur here 
below which one who cherishes such views as 
I do, and who is about to leave the world 
even with the hope of heaven, could not but 
desire to witness. I would be glad if these 



76 Life at Three-Score. 

remarks might show you that as men advance 
in life it is not necessary, though it is so com- 
rnon, to feel that the world is becoming worse; 
and that a man who is soon to leave the earth 
himself may take such a view of human affairs 
as to enable him to utter a cheering word to 
those who are entering on the struggles of life, 
and show them that there is much for the 
church to hope for; much to live and labor 
for. 

Finally. I am personally Jioj>efuI in regard 
to the future world. I cherish the hope that 
I may reach heaven ; and that, having been 
so long a professor of religion, I may be 
"kept from falling/' and be preserved unto 
the eternal kingdom of the Redeemer. On 
this, point, pertaining so much to a man's 
private feelings, and to his personal relations 
to God, it is not proper that I should in a 
public manner say more than this. But I 
know how a man ought to feel who has 
reached the sixtieth year of his life; I know 
how a Christian minister ought to preach — 
what such a man should live for; what he 



f 



Life at Three- Score. 77 

should aim to do ; what spirit he should be of. 
I know how a man ought to live who feels 
that he is rapidly approaching heaven — how 
he ought to labor; to pray; to wait; to hope; 
to be patient — how he ought to be found at 
the post of duty, and to gird himself for the 
last conflict. I shall accomplish what I ought 
to accomplish ; shall live as I ought to live ; 
shall be faithful as a pastor as I ought to be 
faithful ; shall preach as I ought to preach ; 
and shall die with the bright anticipations 
which a Christian man ought to possess, and 
which I most earnestly desire may be mine 
when I die, very much as I am sustained by 
your prayers. Is it improper, then, to ask 
your prayers, that " I may finish my course 
with joy, and the ministry which I have re- 
ceived of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel 
of the grace of God V 



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